North Fork Rattlesnake Creek

Saturday, August 15, 2009

With my horrible travel schedule this summer, I could see summer fishing opportunities quickly vanishing, so I canned my tomatoes, took care of my garden and honey-do list, and slipped away Saturday afternoon to commune with a couple small streams.

First stop was Little Rattlesnake Creek, where I stopped a short distance up the Little Rattlesnake Road (I normally go a mile or two further up). Nothing remarkable, some scattered small fish, rainbows rather than the cutts I normally catch further up. Small, dry caddis fly. I'd go further up next time. I think 8 or 10 fish in about 45 minutes.

Little Rattlesnake Rainbow

My real destination was about 7 miles further up the Forest Service Road, North Fork Rattlesnake Creek. Stopped here last summer and caught quite a few just up from where it enters Rattlesnake Creek. The road quicly climbs quite a ways above the creek, and I had looked down and wondered what the creek was like in that narrow canyon. I started at the turnout just past the bridge and fished up about 1/2 mile through a narrow, steep walled canyon. Steep climb out when you get to the talus field of broken basalt takes you right to the road where it switches back on its way to McDaniel Lake. Really pretty water, lots of pocket water, some nice holes.

But the catching was rather scattered, a lot of water that looked like it should have fish didn't bring any rises. Not nearly as many fish as my brief stop the previous year. Probably two dozen or so in a couple hours. Biggest was a 10-inch cutt, very pretty (see picture). What ended up working best was a dry caddis with a bit of red at the tail (I don't keep track of names of flies). All the fish I caught were pretty fat in the belly, so they may just be more selective because they are stuffed. When I fished Rattlesnake last year, I found I had little action until I hit on just the right fly, and then there were fish everywhere. Pretty hike, pretty fish, it was hard to stop fishing because you could always see one more run just upstream. When I'm in the area again, I'll stop and check it out even further upstream.

N Fork Rattlesnake 10" Cutt

N Fork Rattlesnake Rainbow